Thursday, April 20, 2006
The Standards Board for England Should be Abolished
Since its creation by New Labour in the late 1990s the Standards Board for England has proved to be a complete disaster. It was set up ostensibly to police cases of alleged misconduct in local government, but has become a byword for witchhunts and the usurpation of local democracy. Ridiculous complaints are made to the Board and are invariably thrown out without any investigation whatsoever, but others are taken to extremes. In North Norfolk a situation has developed where the town of Holt now has no elected representation on North Norfolk District Council because the Standards Board has banned Independent councillors Mike Baker and Ron Stone. Stone is so outraged by his six month ban that he has resigned and caused a by-election. Baker may now follow suit. Without going into the whys and wherefores of their positions (they are both, shall we say, strong minded characters - Stone insulted the council chief executive and Baker allegedly spoke at a planning meeting which was considering an application by a company he was associated with) we really do need to ask what right this quango has to interfere with local democracy in this way. The Ken Livingstone case recently demonstrated that it is quite willing to leave people without the elected representation they voted for. This is not democracy. It's diktat by Quangocracy. The Standards Board for England should be abolished as soon as possible. It should remain a Conservative manifesto commitment - and hopefully will become a Labour one too!
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8 comments:
I agree Iain.
It was interesting that when the Standards Board found against Ken Livingstone, Labour MPs were quick to rally round 'one of their own' and say that the Standards Board shouldn't be interferring in the democratic process, yet it has been largely accepted without question that councillors should be subject to its powers, and the power of the local electorate ignored.
Without discussing individual people or cases, can it ever be acceptable for a Councillor to "speak at a planning meeting which was considering an application by a company he was associated with"?
Of course, one could argue that the electors should judge. But we do not come to such a view if, for example, a Councillor commits fraud.
Abusing privileges as an elected representative in the way I have described might not be a criminal offence. But it seems to me to be substantially more serious than, say, voting against the ostensible interests of one's constituents on a local issue.
Mike, I hear what you say, and I'm not defending what Cllr Baker did (I don't know the full story) but surely it should be up to poeple in the locality to deal with it. Consider the equivalent of an MP doing the same thing. He/she could be banned by the Speaker for a certain amount of time, but nothing more. I would suggest that there should be some mechanism within local councils to deal with disciplinary matters.
I don't know the details but the issues you describe seem to be related directly to their conduct as councillors, not what they said to some reporter outside a booze up.
It's a difficult one. I understand the point you make about the Standards Board, but also think it is a genuine, if flawed, attempt to tackle a real problem.
Ranting about how it is all Labour's fault isn't really proposing an alternative.
Did you hear the one about a parish councillor somewhere (WWiltshire rings a bell) who was reported to SBE for having got her sister, a local baker, to prepare a cake for the village's fete celebrations without getting a proper tendering exercise done!
I kid you not.
Whilst it may be uncivil, I can think of several occasions on which one might have been sorely tempted to scream, very loudly, at a council ChEx too!
"but surely it should be up to poeple in the locality to deal with it" - and quite how do you think they might do this?
I agree with 'anonymous said....', you really need to propose a workable alternative rather than just knocking; the pre-1999 position was far from satisfactory.
Iain,
In an ideal world, of course you are right. My aunt and uncle used to live in a small Dictrict Council area where the electorate did take revenge on a local Councillor under simlar circumstances. Would that such civic criticism could be relied upon to knock out less salubrious Councillors (again, not referring to real cases).
Would also that local Councils would discipline memebrs where appropriate. However, experience (Rotherham, Lincolnshire spring to mind as random araes of the country) suggest it does not always work.
So what is the answer? Should a decentralist/democratic/new localist Government allow abuse to continue? Or can people expect Government to defend them from abuse.
Leaving aside party politics (difficult on this issue), my suggestion is that the issue is not as clear cut as you propose. I wish it could be so!
I've always been uneasy at how an unelected body can remove elected members.
That should only be the prerogative of the voters. If Cllr Bufton Tufton takes a backhander to push something through planning, then there are criminal sanctions to deal with that - and rightly so. If all the Cllr is doing is being rude, then that is a matter for his electorate.
The idea behind the Standards Board was entirely reasonable - it was to deal with a hardcore of councillors from all parties who abuse their position. It has been turned into a political weapon of choice against elected members - and one too often wielded by council officers defending their own corners. Even the threat of a complaint may be enough, as members (not all of whom are rich or well-paid) prefer to avoid an expensive case.
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